Madame Manet at the Piano

Madame Manet at the Piano
Artist	Édouard Manet
Year	1867-1868
Medium	Oil on canvas
Location	Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Madame Manet at the Piano is a portrait by Édouard Manet of his wife Suzanne (née Leenhoff), painted in 1867-68 and now in the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris.^[1] It highlights her talent on the piano, having played Wagner to Baudelaire during his last days.^[2]

In 1849 Manet's father appointed Suzanne Leenhoff as piano teacher for his sons. She was a gifted interpreter of composers such as Schumann and Richard Wagner. When the poet Charles Baudelaire suffered a stroke in 1866 and ended up in a Paris hospital, she offered him a distraction by playing Wagner. A love affair developed between Leenhoff and Manet, which would eventually will led to their marriage in 1863.^[3]

In 1868, Edgar Degas had made a painting of the Manet couple with Suzanne at the piano and her husband listening on the couch. Degas gave the canvas to Manet as a present. However, the latter was so dissatisfied with the way his wife had been portrayed that he cut off part of the canvas. Then he painted his own version. Suzanne Manet wears a black dress on this. Manet chose a relatively high vantage point for this painting so that her hands are clearly visible. In the top right corner a small still life is visible in the mirror, including a clock and a pair of candlesticks, lending depth and vibrancy to the flat background.

• List of paintings by Édouard Manet